0:01

Hey Inside the Mix podcast fans.

0:03

It's Midsomer X aka Johan Collendem.

0:06

You can find my new song, hollywood Star, on all streaming services or watch the video on YouTube.

0:12

You can purchase the song on iTunes or Bandcamp.

0:15

You are listening to the Inside the Mix podcast.

0:18

Here's your host, mark Matthews.

0:21

Hello and welcome to the Inside the Mix podcast.

0:23

I'm Mark Matthews, your host, musician, producer and mix and mastering engineer.

0:28

You've come to the right place if you want to know more about your favorite synth music artists, music engineering and production, songwriting and the music industry.

0:37

I've been writing, producing, mixing and mastering music for over 15 years and I want to share what I've learned with you.

0:43

Hello, folks, and welcome back to the Inside the Mix podcast.

0:47

If you are a new listener, welcome, and please do hit that subscribe button.

0:52

And if you're watching on YouTube, hit subscribe and the notification bell.

0:55

If you are a returning listener, welcome back.

0:59

So in this episode, I'm joined by Elaine Rassnake of Daughterboard Audio, and Daughterboard Audio focuses on mastering.

1:07

So in this episode, we dive into topics such as mastering for all types of music, mastering with headphones whether to use closed or open back headphones, what to look out for when reviewing a mix for mastering, levels for mastering, and also what is the biggest mastering mistake and how we can fix it.

1:25

This episode starts a sequence of episodes specifically dedicated to mastering, and if you want to learn more about mastering, then you're going to love this episode and the episodes thereafter.

1:37

But before we dive into this episode. I want to let you know about a free guide that we've created here at the Inside the Mix podcast and it is our five essential free mastering plugins and it's a guide that you can download from wwwsynthmusicmasteringcom forward slash podcast.

1:56

Alternatively, click on the link in the episode description and grab that free guide to our essential five free mastering plugins.

2:05

So let's dive into this episode. Hey folks.

2:08

So in this episode I'm very excited to welcome our guest today, elaine Rassnake.

2:13

So Elaine is a Philadelphia based mastering engineer and the owner of Daughterboard Audio.

2:19

So Elaine focuses on providing mastering and post production services, educating the music community about the importance and art I love that description art of mastering and creating a space to help lift the voices of women and LGBTQIA plus members across the music community.

2:38

Hi, elaine, thank you for joining me today and how are you?

2:41

I'm good. Thank you so much for having me.

2:44

No, this is great. So for the audience listening.

2:46

I invited Elaine onto the podcast because I listened frequently to the Master your Mix podcast with Mike and Davina, and I heard your episode with Mike and you were discussing mastering using headphones and I thought, perfect, I know this audience.

3:01

So many of them are using headphones to mix and master and I think in you know what, this will be a great topic to have on the podcast.

3:07

So a big thanks for joining me on this. So we're going to dive in a bit into your background how you got into mastering, and then I got some questions on mastering with headphones in particular, and then there's a few questions from the audience as well of the podcast.

3:20

So I thought it'd be a great place to start. So you started Daughterboard Audio in 2019.

3:25

Can you tell our audience a bit about your journey? So maybe starting with your BA in Music at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania and, I've got to say, notable for being the first woman to graduate from its audio production program.

3:36

So maybe starting there and then how you moved into mastery.

3:38

Totally yeah. So I mean it was funny because the program was fairly new.

3:45

I think it probably existed, I would guess, like four or five years before I joined.

3:52

So that's just the fun bonus of joining something when it's early that, yeah, I was the first female to graduate from there.

4:02

But yeah, I studied audio production and after college I worked just like at a restaurant, but I would record and produce and just do everything.

4:17

I would make my own music and put it up on band camp, but mainly for the purpose of almost like creating a little portfolio, because I didn't know that many like bands or musicians and I was still living at home, so it's not like I could have people come to my place and record them.

4:36

So I just was making music and I ended up moving into Philly, making a lot of friends with musicians and doing some touring on my own and doing my own little music thing.

4:56

And then around 2017, I started kind of helping my friends out with mixing and recording and stuff and mastering.

5:06

And then in 2019, I really like made daughterboard audio like a thing, so that it wasn't just like come over to Elaine's house and she'll help you out.

5:17

Like let's really, like you know, make. I really wanted to make something out of this.

5:23

And then when the pandemic hit in 2020, that's when I everything shut down and I really had some like decisions to make, because obviously couldn't tour music and then I couldn't have people come to my place to record.

5:43

So it was like, all right, mixing or mastering, like I really wanted to niche down and I felt like focusing on something 100% was just like a really good way to tackle things, because I feel like you know, you have your folks who can do everything, but then there's just something really special about working with someone and like that is their passion, that is like their pride and joy, you know, and it's like, yes, I can do this on the side, but like this is the thing that brings me joy every day.

6:20

And now here we are.

6:24

Yeah, yeah, that's a great story and I like the fact that you started out releasing your own music and then sort of using that as a vehicle to them move forward.

6:32

And then I was going to ask about the pandemic, but you mentioned the pandemic A little bit Sort of here.

6:36

Yeah, yeah, yeah, and it's a common theme, I find, when you talk to creatives, and in particular I was interviewing artists, more so at the beginning of when we started this podcast, because this is going to be episode 98.

6:47

So right at the beginning, yes, motoring on now right at the beginning it was artists and they were saying like, yeah, pandemic hit, because I think I started the podcast just out, just the other side of the pandemic, so it was a sort of a common thread.

7:01

You mentioned there about niching down or niching down depending on your which, which side you want to take with that.

7:08

I'm not so sure which one I go with. What did I say niche?

7:11

I go with niche. Did you say niche or niche?

7:13

I usually say niche, but yeah, honestly, I don't know half of what comes out Even doing these podcasts a lot of the time I listen back when I'm editing and I say I don't remember saying that.

7:25

But yeah, you mentioned niche.

7:27

So you, you, you focused in on mastering.

7:29

Do you focus then on a particular genre of music or are you sort of open to all?

7:35

I'm definitely open to all, I think, one of the reasons being that I listen to and I enjoy so many genres, and especially with mastering.

7:47

I think that there is like a common thread, no matter what the genre is.

7:54

And then you, you learn your fundamentals of, just like, what makes music sound good, no matter what the genre is.

8:03

And then, as you you know from what I've listened to and what I've studied and everything else in between, then you learn what specific genres may be looking for.

8:16

You know, but for me personally, being open to all genres is one of the things that just makes the job really fun, because, you know, I could have a bunch of indie rock come my way and then I'll be like, hey, I have this like jazz album and I'll be like, let's go like something different.

8:35

You know something, something just out of the blue of something new.

8:40

Yeah, it's interesting because listening to other podcasts that was annoying.

8:46

I just had an alarm go off because on my audio output here I've got the mix set to the center, so it was really loud on my end in my headphones and it totally threw me off.

9:00

So, yeah, you mentioned about not niching down and doing a wide variety of music, and I do listen to other podcasts and it sort of there seems to be those who say no, you need to be focused on one type of music, and others which say no, you need to be open.

9:14

So it's quite interesting. You mentioned that when you're first starting out, then say if our audience want to get into mastering and then really focus in on that, do you think they should try mastering all types of music?

9:25

Or maybe, because you mentioned the fundamentals there, or maybe should they focus on maybe it's EDM, for example, focus on getting the fundamentals right in EDM and then then moving to other genres, or maybe should they start with multiple genres and then focus in on one if they want to go down that route.

9:40

Yeah, I mean I can definitely see pros and cons to both routes and especially the importance of like working with what you know.

9:52

So you know, if someone who really enjoys EDM they listen to a lot of EDM, you know dive in that way Because, when I think about it, you know a lot of the stuff.

10:01

I'd say 99% of the stuff that I started with, whether it was when I was still mixing or when I was beginning mastering a lot of it was my friends music, which was mainly in like the indie rock, maybe indie pop, but usually you know your guitars, drums, vocalist kind of set up.

10:21

So I can definitely see the perks of really honing in on a genre so that you can, yeah, learn the fundamentals and then kind of branching out from there, of being like, okay, you know, when working on something more like singer, songwriter-y, you know we don't need to do this or you know we need more of that and just kind of learning those little nuances based off of what you're doing.

10:51

So you know, I think that's the stuff of kind of just like a starting point.

10:56

Yeah, yeah, it does make sense and I think once again, I think it depends there's pros and cons to both approaches.

11:02

Yeah, and it's interesting, the more I chat to people, the more I think that whole niching down or niching down I got that from.

11:09

I don't know if you've ever heard of the Six Figure Creative Podcast.

11:11

Yes, I think it's something like that.

11:12

Yeah.

11:14

And I think it's on here now who cite that and I think that was one of their core sort of principle things that they preach is to focus in on something.

11:21

But, as you say, I think it depends on the individual and what you want to do.

11:24

Yeah, and it definitely makes sense in like more of a mixing standpoint in my personal opinion, because then you really are practicing like, yes, this is how rock drums need to sound, and really being like the person who knows how to mix a rock band, you know, whereas with mastering, you know, it's more like quality check and how can we just add a little bit more life into what is what what ends up on our table?

12:02

Yeah, I like that idea and it kind of mirrors the way I've been thinking recently, because when I'm mixing in and mastering I focus mainly in on sort of synth music and the podcast started out in that vein.

12:14

But now I'm getting more and more and talking to more and more individuals who are outside of that and my background is in metal, as the audience probably knows, because I bang about, bang on about it all the time.

12:22

But I'm considering, actually I'd quite like to start working in other genres of music.

12:27

So I'm kind of going the other way now, where I started out really narrowly focused, and I kind of think, actually I quite like to broaden my horizons and start working in other genres.

12:36

Yeah, I'm sort of coming at it from the other way, but no, that's great and it kind of like segues nicely on to the next question, which is about mentoring, because I noticed on your on your bio and your website that you do a lot of mentoring now.

12:47

But I thought it might be quite interesting to start out like, maybe, if you can mention, sort of tell our audience about your mentors and maybe what is the best thing that you learned from your mentor when you were starting out in the sort of audio industry of ours.

12:59

Yeah, so it's funny I learned.

13:04

I learned a bit in college, you know, but especially when it comes to mastering, mastering was like the two week let's spend two weeks on you know what's important and making sure, like because Spotify didn't exist yet, so it was very like CD focused, you know, and just making sure things don't clip and how to make things louder and how to, how to use isotope, ozone three or whatever it was at the time.

13:34

And so when I was like really diving into mastering and trying to just absorb so much knowledge, a lot of it was from the internet.

13:48

So like you could say that Ian Shepherd, who's a mastering engineer, he had a bunch of like YouTube videos that I just watched, you know, and then I ended up befriending him due to Facebook groups and stuff like that, you know, or reading Bob Katz's book on mastering and Jonathan Weiner's book on mastering, and so like it wasn't until I kind of started befriending other engineers and feeling comfortable, like asking them questions, and so the first of my like met early mentoring, if you will was just trying to gather as much as I could from the internet and then kind of seeing what.

14:36

What was a constant, because obviously the internet can just be full of multiple answers for the same one question, but just kind of being like Okay, this seems to be the consensus, Okay, in these like professionally published books, this is what they say as well, and then you know, three years later it's like oh, I actually like no, Jonathan Weiner, you know, and things like that, and asking them, but weirdly enough, like YouTube and the internet was my like biggest earliest mentor, which is weird to say.

15:10

No, I don't, and you wouldn't be the only person I don't think, and I love what you said about you, bob Katz, because I've got his book and I think, yeah, it's right behind me, back there.

15:19

Bob. Katz's manual. Yeah, yeah, a fantastic book.

15:22

And I totally echo what you said about when you're studying as well, because I remember when I did my master's degree in music, engineering and production and we spent, I think, a couple lessons on mastering and the only bit I could remember from it was the guy.

15:34

The guy said waves, c6, multiband compression, distribute energy, and that is it.

15:42

That's pretty much all he said. And yeah, and it was literally that.

15:46

But Jonathan Weiner, for the audience listening, there's a great series, the Isotope of, put Out with Jonathan Weiner, and I frequently signpost people to that because there's so many good bits of information in there and, as you say, there are also so many videos and so many people saying they've got the answer, the game changing answer to mastering, and you see the thumbnails on YouTube.

16:07

I can't help but get drawn in because I'm like, really, is it game changing?

16:11

And I lose time and I lose all my focus and effort watching these videos and thinking it's not.

16:16

But yeah, what you've mentioned there kind of echoes myself as well.

16:21

I did the exact same and I spent a bit of time in a few mastering studios in the Southwest here a number of years ago.

16:26

But yeah, youtube, you can learn a lot there, but it's I've said this on the podcast before it's sort of like deciphering that information, synthesizing and thinking actually, is this just clickbait or is it actual useful information?

16:39

And it's great that you've mentioned Jonathan Weiner, as I say, and Bob Katz.

16:44

Yeah because the audience, if you're interested in mastering and you're doing your own mastering, you should go and definitely check those out, which kind of leads on nicely to mastering itself now.

16:53

So I mentioned earlier that I discovered yourself via the master, your mix podcast audience.

16:59

Go check that podcast out because it is fantastic. But obviously finish listening to this one first and I was really intrigued by your approach to mastering with headphones.

17:06

So I was wondering if you could tell our audience the decision behind that and why you've gone, why you found yourself going down this route.

17:13

Absolutely yeah. So it again kind of echoes back to I made the decision to focus on mastering during 2020 lockdown and quarantine and everything.

17:28

And you know it was just my my partner and I in a one bedroom apartment and so obviously I had some like Genelec speakers at the time, but just knowing that with mastering, I needed to hear like the full spectrum of sound.

17:47

You know my my partner is doing, you know her Zoom work in the next room, so I don't want to be disrupting her and I was just like I wonder if headphones is is like a valid option.

18:03

And within my research, I had learned about this mastery engineer, glenn Schick, who he uses.

18:12

He uses headphones like 100% of the time.

18:15

You know he has like a, a mobile traveling rig and he uses headphones and I was like okay, because he's worked with folks like Ludacris and Justin Bieber and like names, so it's not just like some dude.

18:29

You know. It's like oh, this is actually a legitimate option and, yeah, just the the need to kind of be quiet brought me to use in headphones and I just spent so much time listening in headphones and like learning the space, like the room and how things sounded, that it just felt it felt weird to then transition over to speakers and then like relearning the speakers and relearning the room, when it's like I already know how to make things sound good, what things should sound like, so why, why change?

19:17

Yeah, yeah, I totally agree, and I'm going to check out Glenn Schick because I'm not familiar with his words.

19:21

I'm very intrigued by that. But there is one, a couple of questions off the back of that, with the Gaster headphones and I thought this question earlier actually, because I saw a post on in Instagram and closed or open back headphones or do you mix, flick between the two open?

19:36

back, open back, open back, yeah yeah, I have found that there's something about closed back that just does weird stuff with the low end and again it just it provides that space of being or that like almost mental, mental sonic space of being in a studio room.

20:02

You know where you can hear things around you.

20:04

But then you hear the sound and there's just yeah, there isn't the extra weird acoustic bits that can happen when you're kind of closed in.

20:16

Yeah, yeah, and that was my thought process then.

20:19

So I'm glad you, glad you second that as well, because it means I'm on the right track.

20:22

So have you, if you were to recommend like a set of headphones to our audience if they're starting out with closed back, I'm sorry, open back headphones have you got sort of like a, a go to pair?

20:33

You would send them in the direction of.

20:34

Yes, let me quick grab them, because they're right behind me.

20:37

I want to say that correctly.

20:41

They are the I believe, yes, the buyer.

20:48

Dynamic DT 990 pro.

20:52

These are awesome.

20:55

They're open back. I don't remember how much they are.

20:58

I feel like they're around the 100s, maybe 200s, if I'm just to make like an absolute guess.

21:05

But they for the price and the frequency response plus comfort.

21:12

They were what I started with in 2020.

21:17

And then, yeah, I they're, they're great.

21:23

Yeah, fantastic. I should get like an affiliate link or something put in the podcast for that.

21:28

That'd be a good idea. So really got to that.

21:30

So you mentioned about sort of like getting used to the frequency response and just the response of the headphones themselves.

21:35

How long do you think I suppose it depends on the individual would it take for you to really get to understand your headphones and sort of is there I was going to say, is there a particular type of music to listen to?

21:46

But once again, I guess it depends on what you're working on, but how long do you think it would take for someone to really get to understand how their headphones operate?

21:54

Yeah, tune into them. It definitely depends, as you had said, on the individual.

21:58

I mean, a guesstimate would be, you know, like maybe 100 hours of listening, maybe more, maybe less, it's.

22:13

It's just one of those things where I never really quite calculated, because I just listen to music all the time and I'm usually like it's now such a habitual thing to like sit down, turn on computer, put on headphones, even if I end up not listening to anything during that entire time.

22:34

I do that as well.

22:34

It just feels correct and so it's like, yeah, I, it depends.

22:41

But definitely, you know, obviously the longer that you listen to music in in the space, the more you understand how things kind of that have been commercially released sound.

22:56

Yeah, yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that about putting headphones in and not listening to anything.

23:00

So I do all the time, specifically with earbuds as well, and then my girlfriend will say something and she'll be like, oh, I thought you're listening to music.

23:05

It's like no, I've literally been sat for an hour without actually listening to anything.

23:08

I've just got them resting in my ears. I don't know, maybe it's a comfort thing, but so another question off the back of that then so obviously you're using your headphones, you haven't got monitors.

23:16

Are you using any other sort of resources to audition masters?

23:20

Like I don't know, maybe a small? I've got this Sony for the audience watching on YouTube.

23:24

I've got this Sony mono speaker here that I sometimes use, and or maybe there's the classic car that people go out to and maybe a mobile phone or a laptop or you just is it just solely you're trusting what you hear in your headphones?

23:36

Yeah, I'm pretty much just trusting what I hear in the headphones, mainly after, you know, my first year of kind of the trial and error of mastering something, sending it to the client.

23:51

And then they come back and were just like cool, I checked it on my speakers, I checked it on my phone, I checked it on my car and it sounds good.

24:00

And so it was like, after you know, an extended period of time, of having that kind of feedback of like sweet I, I ended up checking it here, everything sounds great.

24:11

It was more than kind of giving me that data that, just relying on these headphones, are obviously translating in multiple spaces.

24:22

So, and that just saves time and the whole.

24:25

The whole point of you know, not the whole point, but a big point of mass of having a mastering engineer is that they know what their space sounds like so they can just make the decisions and not have to be like, all right, I think it's good, but let me check it here just in case, let me check it there just in case.

24:48

It's just like, yep, things are correct in here, you know.

24:55

Yeah, you're kind of like as a mastering engineer, you're decisive.

24:58

You know, in a way, your previous clients have sort of done the legwork for you in terms of auditioning it on these different environments and coming back and saying it's great, so they've done the research for you.

25:07

But you're being decisive and say you know what it sounds great in my cans, so I know it's going to translate well on all these different listening environments.

25:15

Which kind of leads on to another question and this just totally sprung up in my head because I get asked this sometimes and it's with regards to mastering.

25:24

I mean, I don't do it, I just have one master to rule them all.

25:28

Rather than provide a master for each individual platform, what are your thoughts?

25:32

Because I sometimes somebody would be like can you send me one for Apple?

25:35

Can I have one for Spotify, soundcloud, bankcamp?

25:37

And I'm like look, just one master to rule them all sort of thing.

25:40

I am very much on the same page as that.

25:44

I pretty much provide, you know.

25:47

Just yeah, this one sounds good if they specifically ask for.

25:54

You know, like the ADM, like the Apple Digital Master.

25:58

You know, since I am one of the like, I forget what the wording is, but it's like I am a legitimate studio, a certified studio that can do that.

26:10

Yeah, If they ask for those specific files to meet those specific standards, I will then provide that.

26:19

But when it comes to you know, oh, I want something for YouTube, I want something for Spotify, I want something for Instagram, it just is all the same one file.

26:31

Yeah, it makes perfect sense. Otherwise, what is more is I know a lot of the audience listening as well they're gonna be using platforms like DistroKid, cd Baby, tunecore, and you can only upload one file anyway, so I'm not totally sure why they would need the others.

26:44

Yeah, and it's one of those things cause like so yes, I do provide different file types, cause when you mentioned CD Baby, you know they only take, you know what a CD file quality would be which is like 16 bit, 44 one, whereas DistroKid can take the higher bit rate and higher, you know, sample rate, like 2496.

27:08

So I'll provide those. But when it comes to like, oh well, spotify needs this and you know, but Pandora does that, it's just, it's a weird way and it's weird to me to have specific files to to appease platforms that may not exist forever.

27:34

And I like the idea of creating something that sounds good if you, you know, just play it on your computer and then, if you're uploading it, however they choose to manipulate things.

27:48

It's kind of out of our control.

27:51

So we only do our best, but who knows, if you know, in five years Spotify has completely different standards, for you know what certain levels should be hitting and that's just.

28:04

It feels like a lot of extra work versus just being like it sounds great.

28:09

Here you go, you know.

28:12

Yeah, 100%. And, like you mentioned there, all it would take is for Spotify or Apple not necessarily Tidal cause Tidal's sort of high fidelity, but Spotify, just to change the way it operates and then suddenly that master you've created for them is it's not fit for purpose anymore.

28:28

So no, that's great, and I think the audience listening should take that on board, cause I do have this conversation frequently and I see it in threads as well, all about sort of the classic minus 14 laughs argument that I see everywhere and I'm like just ignore that, just do your thing and make it sound good, you know.

28:44

Yeah, yeah, and it's like if you were to, you know, take a favorite song of yours, you know, purchase the WAV file and whatnot, put it into, like you know, whether it's like Loudness Penalty or in your DAW to like, look at, like insight, to look at the data.

29:07

I don't think that there is, like many commercially released songs that are always hitting the negative 14, the way that it's talked about, unless, obviously, cause it's so genre specific.

29:26

You know, there have been tons of just like acoustic and singer-songwriter, just vocalist and acoustic guitar that's hit in minus 15, lufs integrated, but it then is sonically on par with, you know, a Lady Gaga style song, you know, and it really is genre specific about where things should be hitting.

29:53

But I think the most important thing is making sure that it's just not crushed to death unless that genre calls for it, you know.

30:04

But just, yeah, like keeping things musical, letting things breathe, but let it have that forward energy that it just it needs so that it pulls you in.

30:16

And sometimes things need to be pushed louder and, yeah, a streaming platform shouldn't really be that kind of stopping force to say, hey, I know you want it to be louder, but I might make it sound a little funky, but who knows?

30:33

You know, like just make it good.

30:35

Yeah, I totally agree, and I like the idea of what you mentioned there about letting it breathe as well, cause I say that a lot and letting the track breathe and I think that's the most critical thing, cause I do frequently hear songs where it's just been absolutely crushed, and I said this before to someone.

30:51

I was like I mean I could listen to it now, but my ear fatigue, I'm probably not gonna be able to listen to a whole album of it.

30:57

It's gonna totally.

30:59

Yeah, I'm gonna go to need to lie down afterwards and that sort of that line of questioning moves us on nicely.

31:05

So we've got some Facebook community group questions and this one's quite important.

31:10

Actually I was gonna chuck this in off my own back, but so a member called Tim Ruddruff Woodruff, who's been on the podcast before, so shout out to him.

31:16

He asks what is the biggest mastering mistake that people make and how would you go about fixing it?

31:24

Ooh, biggest mastering, mistake.

31:29

For maybe from like a DIY perspective.

31:31

Yeah, there are two things that immediately come to my mind.

31:36

One is just making it too, like making the track too compressed and too loud, that like hearing the compression, and I think that kind of ties into the other thing, which is the mistake of like doing too much it's really hard to know when something doesn't need something and making the mistake of making all of these adjustments and adding all of this stuff because you have it and having the ability to listen to something and realizing, like this actually doesn't really need anything Other than maybe like a little volume lift, and then it's good.

32:32

It's really tempting, when you have all of the tools in front of you, to start messing around and yeah, and just messing with things when you don't need to.

32:47

Yes, I like that answer because it mirrors the conversation I had with an artist called Kuller Theory who is also a mastering engineer, and we had this conversation about isotope, for example, which is great, isotope's great, the whole suite itself.

33:00

But there are so many modules in isotope and you can easily fall into the trap of what you mentioned.

33:06

There is like, well, I've got all these modules, I need to use them.

33:09

So you start slapping in all these I can't remember half of them off the top of my head but you start slapping them in because they're there and you think that you need to use them.

33:17

So would you say then, with regards to that, like mastering is all, like, like you say, is that final 10% is getting it to that position whereby it can translate into that and translating different environments and get it ready for release, would you?

33:31

It's the mix is the most important part.

33:34

Then how would you know that your mix is at a position whereby it's ready to take on, to master?

33:39

What would you look for?

33:41

Yeah, I'd say, you know, obviously it's ready to master.

33:48

When, yeah, it's hard Cause it's bringing back a thing that I learned in college when there's no such thing as a finished mix, there's just deadlines, because for a lot of people it's really easy to just continue tinkering and tinkering and tinkering, and it's almost like one of those things where when you find yourself at the mix stage and you're just making like the most minute changes that like you think that you can like hear, but it really isn't anything.

34:23

Like that's when it's like time to stop and be like, hey, how is this, you know?

34:30

Is this good? Yeah, and obviously just making sure that you know the mix is done when it is fully representing what you are trying to convey, you know, which is a much more abstract thought, but it's hard and, honestly, one of the reasons why I chose mastering over mixing because I am such a tinkerer and I would just be like, hmm, maybe this vocal needs to be like down half a beat DB or maybe only you know, and just making all of these minor things that like no one's really gonna hear that difference and it's just, it's hard.

35:20

Yeah, I'm with you on that one and I used to do that all the time like the binge they call it like binge editing, and I would.

35:26

I was going to give the example there, what you said about the vocal, and like I remember I was doing an edit earlier in the week of a mix and it was like this, this outro section.

35:35

I was like, oh, I'm just going to automate that vocal by 0.5 dB and I caught myself like why am I doing that?

35:40

Like no one's going to know, like I know, but no one else is really going to care about that, and I probably just wasted like half an hour's worth.

35:49

It doesn't take me half an hour to automate that, but just listening to it and then second guessing and all that.

35:54

So now I think, and also when I've given feedback as well on a mix and I always kind of like if there's something that stands out to me and I'm like, well, I'm not quite sure about that, I always say like is this from a creative perspective?

36:06

Because sometimes it is, that's what they want.

36:09

I did it just now with it with some feedback. I was like this synth spikes there.

36:12

Is that a creative decision?

36:15

Because if it is great, leave it in. And yeah, I think it.

36:18

It's great. If the mix mirrors your creative vision, then ride with it.

36:22

Yeah, I say that so often because I, you know, I provide whenever folks come to me and was like, hey, I'm ready to have this mastered.

36:30

I will listen and I will say like, hey, these were a few things that I noticed.

36:37

Can you let me know if this was, you know, on purpose?

36:41

Is this purposefully happening or was this something that accidentally slipped?

36:45

And so, again, it's like one of those things where, you know, going back to knowing when a mix is done, and if you find yourself tinkering a lot or you're just like, yep, this is conveying what it needs to convey, by having that outside set of ears, you almost have that person that can kind of be like, hey, you know, I still feel like it's lacking.

37:08

This is this purposeful, and just having having that outside source kind of be like, either this sounds great, good job.

37:18

Or like, hey, I think we're almost there.

37:21

Do you want to check in on this? You know, just having that that help helps.

37:28

Yeah, exactly, and I totally agree, and it's it's the sort of standpoint and I take as well.

37:33

So this is fantastic. So the other question was from Eric Jung, who's an artist called dream commander, who's actually been on the podcast as well, and he asks is there a DAW or software that's better suited or more qualified for mastering purposes?

37:51

I mean yes and no.

37:54

When I started I was actually mastering in Ableton of all things, because for me one Pro Tools just always crashed.

38:10

Classic, yes, yes.

38:12

And also there's there's something about the mindset, especially if you are someone who mixes and masters, to mix in one DAW and then master in another one, it just puts you literally in a different space, therefore like a different mindset.

38:30

And then I moved over to what I currently use, which is Reaper, and I feel like the biggest thing is using a DAW that allows you to do as much as possible in the one kind of space.

38:54

So I know, like I know a bunch of people who absolutely love WaveLab because you can, you know, really lay out an album, you can do all the metadata in one bit, you can just export everything in that one space so that you don't have to go back and forth.

39:14

And it's a very similar thing for me and Reaper and just being able to do like 99% of everything just in this one space.

39:25

And it gives me a lot of control over certain things that might not exist in other DAWs, you know, like clip editing versus putting processing on folders and multiple different things and just really getting like fine, fine details done.

39:47

Not every, not every DAW is geared towards that.

39:51

So I've heard great things about WaveLab.

39:55

I absolutely love Reaper, you know, and then there's more expensive ones, like Sequoia, I think, and things like that, but those are the kind of top ones Like, yes, people do master in Pro Tools.

40:10

It's almost then kind of like what's more comfortable for you and your workflow and kind of like again, like with headphones, once you like learn that space, then you're so much faster and so much more confident in it.

40:24

So it's like pick one that you feel like you can really enjoy the workflow and enjoy the visual space of it all and then just kind of just dive in.

40:38

Amazing. I'm so glad you said Reaper, because I use Reaper as well and I love Reaper.

40:42

Yeah, shout out to fellow Reaper users. And yeah, I've been using that since for about eight or nine years now.

40:49

I did a bit of time at Half-Odd Mastering, which is in South Wales over here, and he was using Reaper and I just jumped over to it.

40:56

I love Reaper but I mix in Logic so it follows that workflow.

40:59

So I do all the mixing production in Logic and then I chuck it into Reaper.

41:03

Reaper's fantastic. I love Reaper and I also learned this week this is from Sound On Sound magazine that I never knew you could do this.

41:09

But you can get a module and you can take parameters from multiple different I haven't tried it yet multiple different plugins and you can create like a hybrid plugin module so you can control.

41:18

Say, if you wanted to control the compression of unisum and then you wanted to control the low pass filter, high pass filter in Pro Q3.

41:25

You can have it all in one module yeah, I haven't tried it yet and then you could have.

41:30

If you're using Maximizer, you could have the Threshold as well in this one module.

41:33

You can do all your mastering for all these plugins in one window.

41:36

That's fascinating. I know, I didn't know you could do it.

41:39

I haven't tried it, but it's a thing, it's a check out, sound On Sound.

41:44

I think it was like the June issue. You could probably get it online, but I'm going to try it and see what I come up with.

41:49

But no, so shout out to the audience Use Reaper.

41:52

You've got the 60-day free trial, which it says 60-day, but it runs on and on and on, not that I should probably be highlighting that.

42:02

And I will know it has a very steep learning curve, but then once you get it, it's just amazing the amount of things that you can control.

42:12

I think that was one of the extra perks about diving into all of this during quarantine, when I couldn't go to work and so I just had all of this free time.

42:25

So I would spend 10 hours a day just being like how does Reaper work?

42:33

Yeah, there's still bits, now that I have to go and look at I only found out recently how you can configure the backups, because I lost the session once and I just thought, like logic, it did it automatically and it didn't, so I had to go in and configure it, which was a pain.

42:49

But, like you say, it's a steep learning curve.

42:52

I was like, well, why is it hidden in there? But the pros and cons I know.

42:56

I love Reaper, so that's amazing, elaine.

42:59

We're at the 40-minute mark now, so I think what would be a good opportunity for you is maybe where our audience can find you online if they want to learn more about yourself and also what you provide in terms of mastery Absolutely.

43:08

Yeah, so you can find my website at daughterboardaudiocom or just googling daughterboardaudio often brings it up as well.

43:19

I'm the most active on Instagram at daughterboardaudio, and that's pretty much the main two spaces that I kind of existed on the internet, whether that's yeah.

43:35

And my website has a whole bunch of music like my entire discography and playlists, as well as, if you are interested in working with me, contact forms, info bits I always love chatting with people and then obviously, instagram DMs and stories and all that good stuff.

43:55

Fantastic stuff. I'll put links to that in the episode as well, so the audience can go and check it out.

43:59

Elaine, it's been an absolute pleasure.

44:01

Thank you for joining me today. Thank you so much, because I know the audience are going to get loads out of this, and it's also great for me to know that obviously, a fellow mastering engineer is doing the similar things that I am as well, which kind of solidifies what I'm doing working in the silo here in the southwest.

44:16

So, it's great, but no, as I say, it's been an absolute pleasure.

44:19

Thank you for taking the time with me today and enjoy the rest of your Sunday and I'll catch up with you soon.

44:24

Thank you again for having me.